World Revolution : Plot Against Civilization

Description

World Revolution

The Plot Against Civilization

By Nesta H. Webster

The author traces the growth of the conspiracy from early Illuminism and the French Revolution, through the rise of syndicalism, anarchism, bolshevism, communism and WWI, which she calls "The Revolution of 1917." The 1971 updated version by Webster and Gittens.

From the Back Cover:

Nesta Bevan was born in a stately home in Trent Park and was the youngest daughter of Robert Bevan, close friend of Cardinal Manning; her mother was the daughter of Bishop Shuttleworth of Chichester. Nesta was educated at Westfield College under the austere Miss Maynard. On coming of age she traveled round the world, to India, Burma, Singapore, and Japan, in those leisurely, inexpensive days. In India she met and married Captain Arthur Webster, the Superintendent of the English Police. Settling down in England she commenced to write, and a strong literary obsession overcame her that she had lived in eighteenth-century France.

Like the "Ladies of Versailles", the more she read about the French Revolution the more she remembered! Her first serious book on this subject was "The Chevalier de Boufflers", which fascinated Lord Cromer to judge by his long review in "The Spectator". Deeper and deeper she sank into the literature of the Revolution, spending over three years at the British Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale. After the first World War she was asked to give a lecture on the Origin and Progress of World Revolution to the officers of the Royal Artillery at Woowich.

By special request she repeated the lecture to the officers and non-commissioned officers of the Brigade of Guards in Whitehall, and then she was asked to repeat it a third time to the officers of the Secret Service and it was at their special request that she wrote "World Revolution" based on these lectures. Her charm and brilliance enabled her to captivate some of the leading literary, political and military minds of her day, and Lord Kitchener in India described her as the "foremost opponent of subversion".

A significant result of this parting company between Socialism and Illuminism was shown in the abandonment of the campaign of militant atheism that had distinguished the earlier revolutionary movement, and the readers of the "Atelier" were enjoined to regard the clergy no longer as "suspects" but as possible allies. "The Revolution has only to proclaim itself Christian to desire only what Christianity commands, and the clergy will be obliged to unite with it.

Unhappily, in spite of these lofty ideals and the undoubted sincerity of the men who professed them, the "workers' associations" were doomed to failure, for the simple reason that their founder had reckoned without the weaknesses of human nature. After the first 'elan had subsided, the foreman became weary of being the servant of all. The workers found no stimulus to effort in the system of equal payment, and all chafed at the necessity for putting by a sixth part of the profit. Finally, the difficulty of combining Christianity and revolution proved insuperable, and the workers, obliged to choose between the two, split into opposing camps, thus putting an end to the associations.